Is the Company 2011 Philharmonic DVD still happening? — Page 7

While we're deconstructing Tick Tock, I have a few more things to add.

What is the purpose of Tick Tock in the show? I have heard arguments over whether it is significant to the plot or not, and whether it counts as interpretive dance or as a proper dream ballet. I tend further towards the interpretive dance side- if the number were a dream ballet, it would be much more blatantly plot significant, and the script would carry some details to ensure a certain amount of specificity. Instead, it only indicates a dance, solo or otherwise. Other than the sex/love break, the dance shows off the dancer's skill more than it says anything about Bobby.

The music, however, tells the story. Look at the piece's title- "Tick Tock." It's something of a triple reference- tick tock of time passing (Robert's aging), and of the piece's signature tick-tock rhythm. Yet, the tick-tock itself also can be seen as an indication of the piece's sexuality in the first half- the married couples (in fact, OLDER married couples in the original staging) are not implied to have much in the way of a sex life, and when the dance shifts its focus to them, the ticking stops.

I feel like staging it as a dream ballet rather than an interpretive dance piece might work if one was creative with it- it's such a freeform piece with built in punchlines that one could do interesting things there.

But it almost feels to me like the momentum works equally well with and without it- you have a different punchline when it's "Poor Baby" coming after the butterfly monologue than "Tick Tock." "Tick Tock" gives us from the bedroom scene right into Bobby's sexual self-conflict. Otherwise, we have sort of the joke of Bobby eager to hop into bed, cutting right to Bobby, unfulfilled and insecure, in bed while April sleeps.

And of course, to make it work, you HAVE to play Company as a great sitcom, not as a terse dramedy.

That's how it's always been, you're right, in both scripts.

(Of course Act II in particular is rather different in that audio of the Boston try out. I wanna say Poor Baby opens the act, but have to check--What Would We Do Without You is the penultimate song, etc, etc. That audio is funny--for a long time I subscribed to the belief that Hal did sell out by cutting and replacing Happily Ever After. That was more when I was a cynical teenager. Now, I see that it simply didn't work, as much as I love the song--oddly it's one of the Sondheim songs I sing in the shower the most--. When the song ends on the audio botleg you can literally hear the audience completely unsure how to react and comments like "is that it?" etc, lol)